ASUS Zenbook UX32V Review: Ultrabooks Are What All Laptops Should Be.

by David Klemke on November 6, 2012

I was never a big fan of laptops. By their very nature they’re almost sealed systems with nearly all of their components being integrated meaning your upgrade options are usually quite limited. Back in the day when upgrades came on a regular 12 month cycle this essentially meant buying a whole new system, something which a then 4 part time job working student like me couldn’t really afford. However as I was required to do work abroad, usually for weeks at a time, a portable computer became something of a necessity and that culminated in me buying a MacBook Pro 2 years ago. I hadn’t replaced it yet since it was still managing to do everything I needed it to do but part of the perks of winning the LifeHacker competition was that I was given a shiny new ASUS Zenbook UX32V to cover TechEd and, of course, take home with me.

Now when I got the MacBook Pro it was among the slimmest and lightest 15″ laptops you could get. Whilst its a far cry from many of the laptops I’ve had to use in the past compared to the Zenbook it’s something of a tank being almost twice the thickness and weight. You can put a lot of this down to the MacBook Air inspired design aesthetic as well as the 2″ smaller screen but even with that taken into consideration its still quite striking just how small and light the Zenbook is. I can quite easily hold it in one hand and type on it with the other, something that I would most definitely not attempt with my MacBook Pro. When carrying it around for long periods of time this weight difference is an absolute godsend as I barely notice it over the regular weight of my shoulder bag.

It’s featherweight status comes from the extensive use of aluminium in the body and top part of the monitor rather than the reams of plastic that’s common in similar ultrabooks. This means it doesn’t feel like something you’ll break if you look at it the wrong way and although its really only been on one trip with me it’s endure enough abuse that I can safely say that it’s just as durable as my older, chunkier MacBook Pro. It’s also quite user servicable too with iFixIt giving it a 8 out of 10 rating much better than many comparable ultrabooks.

What really impressed me about the Zenbook however was the incredible hardware specs that ASUS managed to cram into this tiny form factor. Underneath all that aluminium is an Intel Core i5 processor capable of ramping itself up to 2.6GHz (stock speed is about 1.7GHz). It also comes with 4GB of RAM which would typically be shared with an integrated graphics processor however the Zenbook is the first ultrabook to come with a discrete graphics chip, the NVIDIA GeForce GT620M. The Zenbook also comes with a hybrid drive that has a 28GB SSD cache that backs 500GB of spinning rust which is just the icing on this little powerhouse cake.

Of course since this little beasty was shaping up to the replacement for my current laptop there was one thing it needed to be able to do: play games. I have to admit that I was sceptical at first because I’ve fiddled with a lot of other small laptops like this before and not one of them was able to play games properly, that only seemed to come with systems that would kindly be described as luggable desktops. The Zenbook however managed to run pretty much everything I threw at it without a worry with games like DOTA 2 being buttery smooth at max resolution with all the settings cranked up to high.

One of the minor features that I feel bears mentioning is the amount of connectivity available on them. Now the Zenbook isn’t leaps and bounds ahead of similar models in this regard but the simple addition of an extra USB port (giving a total of 3) is something that I feel has been sorely lacking with nearly every laptop I’ve had. Heck even the semi-modern one I’m typing this on at the moment still only sports 2 USB ports which means that should I want to use my 4G dongle, external mouse and charge my phone at the same time I’m faced with the unenviable position of having to not do one of those things. You might not find yourself in that situation very often but I sure have, especially when I was running around TechEd and using all my devices to their maximum potential.

There’s a minor quirk that I feel bears mentioning which was initially picked up by one of my fellow LifeHacker competition winners Terry Lynch. When you first start up the laptop with its pre-installed Windows 7 OS you’ll get 2 partitions at are of roughly equal size. However should you decide you want to upgrade to Windows 8 and remove all the partitions instead of being presented with 1 500GB volume to format (like you’d expect from these hybrid drives) you’ll instead get 1 28GB partition and another 500GB one. From our testing its clear that the 28GB partition is the SSD and the 500GB is the platter based storage. This is great for splitting off your OS onto the SSD section and leaving the rest for data but it does seem a bit odd since the marketing would lead you to believe it was a single hybrid drive. I’m not sure if this is the case with other hybrids however, so if you’ve had experience with one I’d like to hear what your experience was like.

The ASUS Zenbook UX32V is an amazing piece of hardware combining the best elements of its larger cousins with a form factor that is just sublime. After using it for a couple days I had no issues making it my main laptop and when combined with Windows 8 (something I’ll talk about in depth at a later date) it becomes an amazing little powerhouse that feels like it was designed with this operating system in mind. I had never really considered getting an ASUS branded laptop in the past but now I’m having trouble thinking about going for anything else as it really is that good. If you’re after a portable rig that can still do everything that a regular PC can do then you don’t have to look much further than the Zenbook.

The ASUS will set you back about $1149 and the MacBook air $1349 for a similarly specced model, so about $200 difference between the two. The MacBook does have the slight advantage of having a 128GB SSD however with the hybrid drive you probably wouldn’t notice the difference and the Air doesn’t have a discrete graphics card.

For me personally I’d still go with the ASUS over the MacBook due to the versatility but if you’re already familiar with OSX then the Air would be the better bet. If I was just going to get something for just blogging I could probably get away with a netbook for about half the price but realistically I use my laptops for a lot more, so the ASUS wins out in that regard.